A Midsummer Nightmare
by CrumbsUK
Summary: Catherine, Sara and Ray investigate the mysterious death of an actress who was shot on-stage by her co-star whilst Nick and Greg re-open a cold case upon receiving some new evidence relating to the case.  Chronicles of Las Vegas - 1x01
1. Part 1 of 4

Disclaimer: I do not own CSI or its affiliated characters. Characters not in the series are my own.

A/N: This is the first story in my series, Chronicles of Las Vegas, I plan on writing many stories in this series and each story should begin developing each of the characters and various story arcs throughout the series. Of course, compliments and criticisms will motivate me to continue the series and help me write better stories in the future. Thanks for reading. :)

* * *

><p>"Honey, I don't think I can do this," said the tall red-headed woman as she took a seat on the frayed armchair, one which had clearly seen better days. "I love you, but this is my home and I don't think I'm ready to leave my life behind to go with you.<p>

"Olivia, I promise you. You won't regret this," the other person, a man, handsome, slightly shorter than she was spoke.

The man strode over to the armchair Olivia was sitting on, bent down and gave her a light kiss on her forehead. He was slightly younger than she was; there was a sense of mischief surrounding him.

"Come on," he whispered to her, "Seattle will be perfect, you'll still be close enough to your parents yet you'll be far enough away from him. We could start a new life, I can transfer to the Washington branch and you'll get the lifestyle you always wanted. Not like this... shithole."

Olivia sighed, taking in what he had told her. "But... this is my home... I've lived here all my life, how am I going to tell my daughter? How am I going to tell her "say goodbye to your friends, your job, your boyfriend, we're moving twelve-hundred miles away." What about me? I can't just, transfer my job; ditch all my friends, my parents..."

"You've got me!" The man began to raise his voice, "Stella's a big girl now, I'm sure if she really cares about her life here she can stay with..."

"I am not leaving my Stella behind! And I certainly wouldn't leave her for you! What makes you think I would do that to run off with you?"

"Because I make you happy, when was the last time he did..."

"No! I can't do this, just leave me alone," she forcefully pushed him aside, got up from the chair and headed for the door.

"Don't you turn your back on me!" The man called, his voice filling with rage as he opened a drawer on the table beside the chair and took out the gun and pointed it at her. "Don't move, or I'll shoot!"

"You're going to have to shoot me then!"

"If I can't have you... no one can."

A loud bang echoed around the room, Olivia let out a gasp before she slumped against the door and collapsed in a graceful heap on the ground, the spring green carpet beneath her revealing a brown stain dispersing from her fresh corpse. The audience expressed a mixture of emotions; some seemed impressed whilst others were startled by the authentic sounding gunfire. For a short moment there was just an eerie silence only broken by the ticking of the grandfather clock on stage. It soon became clear however that character had been broken and the overall mood changed to concern as it soon became apparent that this was not in the original script.

"Oh god, Lorna!" The man panicked, coming out of character and running over to where his fellow cast-member lay fallen. "Lorna, no! Somebody call nine-one-one!

* * *

><p>Stifling a yawn, the slender strawberry-blond women ducked under the crime tape and proceeded to walk towards the main auditorium. Although not exhausted, she was still not fully awake having been called in early for this shift but she didn't mind too much as swing were busy with a drive-by on East Flamingo and the previous evening had proven to be uneventful, at least she wasn't stuck in the lab again.<p>

The main entrance was packed full of eager spectators, many of whom were shocked or annoyed about losing their money's worth, as well as around a dozen police officers and detectives undergoing the tedious task of taking statements from all of them. The tense atmosphere clashed with the glamorous entrance decor, boasting numerous chandeliers, portraits and the room emanated a welcoming glow. Catherine looked over to the left to see a tall, burly detective finishing with an elderly woman. He caught her eye and gave her a wink and she gave him a smile in return before heading into the main theatre complex.

"What have we got then?" She asked the homicide detective, who clearly looked grumpy and deflated about the laborious task that awaited them.

"Victim's name is Lorna McAlman," he began reading from his notebook, "36 years of age. Plays the main female role in this touring show, "Vegas to Seattle With Love"."

She let out a slight snigger as Brass read out the title with a hint of sarcastic romance, particularly emphasising "with love".

"Well," he continued, "we're still awaiting about a hundred or so statements but so far they all seem to claim that the leading guy shot the female vic during the performance. At first they thought it was part of the performance before they saw the blood and the guy broke out of character and called for an ambulance."

"Where's the leading male?"

"His name is Martin Salisbury, we're taking him downtown."

"Okay, but if you're going to kill someone, why do it in front of an audience of six hundred?"

"Beats me, but we're going to talk to him just in..."

Brass was cut off suddenly by a short, eccentric looking man dashing around the room like a headless chicken, sporting a large pair of aviators which clashed horribly with a garish Hawaiian shirt and jeans. His hair was messy and greying and it looked like several had been pulled out. He was on the phone and speaking frantically in a wheezy sounding voice. "Yeah... yeah I know they're gonna be pissed... I can't afford to refund them all do they not know how much it costs to set up a touring show in Vegas... yeah... yeah just call her in, I need her at rehearsals tomorrow seven am sharp!"

Hanging up he tried to dart away but Brass prevented this by patting his shoulder, gaining the peculiar man's attention. "Hey, hey, who are you?" he asked the man.

"Quinz Martinez Algora Risetti, Production Stage Manager of "Vegas to Seattle With Love," he replied. "The show is ruined. We've already had to cancel tomorrow's performance and how are we going to keep to schedule? We're supposed to be in LA next week, complete sell out on all four nights."

"With all due respect, a woman has been killed," Catherine pointed out.

"Lorna's death is an utter tragedy. She was an absolute star and she had such a promising career ahead of her. I don't know how my show will survive without her!"

"Okay, Mr Risetti..." Brass began.

"Martinez Algora Risetti," he piped in. Brass shot him a look of disapproval before continuing.

"Okay, Mr Risetti, I'm Jim Brass, this is Catherine Willows from the Crime Lab we need to ask you a few questions."

"Can you talk us through tonight's performance please?" Catherine asked.

"Well," Risetti began, ""Vegas to Seattle With Love" is a dramatic comedy about a beautiful love affair between a marrie..."

"Okay, okay, stop there", Brass interrupted, "Spoilers and yadda yadda. Where does the gun fit into this, ahem, comedy?"

"Well, the gun incident occurs towards the end of Act One where Olivia gets intimidated about moving to Seattle with her new-found lover. He tries to shoot at her as she leaves. Only he's meant to miss, and she's not supposed to die. Oh and that gun's not supposed to be able to fire real bullets! I can't believe someone would try and sabotage my show!"

"Sabotage?" Catherine questioned, "so you think someone else replaced Martin Salisbury's prop with a real gun?"

"I'm almost certain. Martin would never wish to kill Lorna; they had such great chemistry behind the scenes as well as on-stage. They were even going to set up their own theatre school in Sacramento once we'd finished touring! They were best friends, no wait, they were bigger than best friends, I don't believe for one second he would intentionally hurt her."

"Okay Mr Risetti," Brass continued, "we're going to need a list of anyone who had access backstage, to the props, dressing rooms etcetera."

"Sure." His phone began ringing again, "sorry, I gotta get this."

"Don't leave town," Brass called out as he scuttled away. "So Cath, what're you thinking?"

"I don't know, I really don't see why Martin Salisbury would kill his co-cast member on-stage?"

"Maybe to throw us off?"

"Maybe. I'll page Ray and Sara and start processing; I'm going to start on the stage now. We need to find out what happened and fast. It looks like we already have the press on our asses and I don't need to Undersheriff doing the same. Whatever happened, this comedy turned into a tragedy."

* * *

><p>"You called?"<p>

Nick turned around to find the younger CSI beaming at him, eager to be assigned a new task from the assistant supervisor. Nick was slightly envious of the alertness of his fellow co-worker, having had little sleep the day before, although that could be down to the copious amounts of coffee that Greg appeared to guzzle daily.

"Hey Greg," Nick replied, "Judy just sent me this."

He pointed at the large peach fabric stretched out over the table in the layout room. It had clearly had quite a journey before arriving at the lab, there were various rips and tears in the fabric accompanied with various brown extracts dotted around. Most noticeable of course was the huge red stain which encompassed the middle of the fabric and extending towards the corners.

"Someone get a little clumsy with their wine?" Greg suggested, "I'll test it for blood."

"Yeah, anyway Judy said someone dropped it off earlier, found it on their driveway, thought it looked suspicious and suggested that we should have a look. Bit peculiar though, any normal person would just throw it away, but still, could be something we might have missed on another case."

"Positive for blood," said Greg, holding up the magenta cotton swab which confirmed his findings.

"Okay, send it to DNA. I'll see if I can get this soily stuff to trace, looks like we've got a busy evening ahead of us after all."

Nick switched off the lights and ran the fabric under the ALS. Having swept over the fabric numerous times, he found nothing new which proved to be of any interest.

"What are you thinking Nick?" Greg had returned from his excursion to DNA accompanied with a handful of cookies and another cup of coffee.

"Whoa, no food in here you dope! And why are you on a break already, we started work only... fifteen minutes ago."

Greg shrugged, replying with a mouthful of cookies "Am hongry. Wha' you thimkin' then?"

"I'm thinking, we got a body dump missing a body."

At that moment, Judy appeared in the room carrying a letter in her hand. "This just came for you," she handed him the letter, "well, I assumed it was for you."

Nick peeked at the letter as Greg inspected the envelope noticing that there wasn't a postage stamp, and there was also something strange with the address, "Judy, this is addressed to a Gregory Hojem!"

"Like I said," she replied, "I assumed it was for you."

Judy walked off, he heard her heels clinking on the laminated floor and getting further away. He had another peek at what the letter said, he glimpsed at some words he could not understand before Greg gave him a look which expressed 'out of my territory.'

"I'll... I'll get this substance to trace," Nick said, slightly awkwardly as he collected the soil sample and left Greg reading the mysterious letter alone.

* * *

><p>The room which Sara found herself in had been left in pristine condition, were it not for the various costumes, props, make-up assortments and books, it would have been like nobody had ever stepped in there. The east facing wall was lined with mirrors, reminiscent of a showgirl's dressing room, albeit without the glamorous headdresses. Not one speck of dust was in sight, not even along the top of the mirrors. As if Lorna McAllman had cleaned up before the scene of her crime.<p>

Of course, nothing of great interest or suspicion was obvious, even to the eyes of a crime scene investigator, after all, this was not the primary crime scene and it was doubtful that any evidence found in the room would be anything but circumstantial. Despite this, she carried on snooping around, taking pictures as required, and trying to identify anything that looked remotely out of place.

"She sure liked to sparkle," a deep voice emerged from behind Sara; it was Ray examining a short dress consisting entirely of sequins and glitter.

"Oh yeah," she replied, indicating to the dress, "I'm sure Greg would like that."

"Well that'll make this year's Christmas shopping a little easier."

Sara smiled to herself as she went back to her snooping, trying to get the image of Greg dancing in the sequined dress out of her head. Something caught her eye and she called out to Ray, "it looks like she was celebrating something."

She snapped a photo and picked up the bottle of champagne. It had been opened but only a little of it had been drunk. It was probably the best thing they had gotten so far so she emptied the champagne into a container and bagged the bottle.

"You don't drink champagne alone do you?" she asked Ray.

"I don't drink it at all," he replied, "but if I did, I'd consider it more of a social drink."

"Yeah, me too. Looks like someone else was in here, but then again that doesn't mean they killed her and judging by the amount left here, it looks like they weren't interested in the alcohol. "

Ray nodded in agreement.

"Looks like she had a family as well," Ray said showing her a picture of a balding man in his forties and a pretty girl, who looked vaguely similar to the victim with long red hair and distinctively emerald green eyes. She could not have been any older than fourteen.

"Husband and daughter?"

"I guess so."

The two of them spent the next hour processing the remainder of the room; the lack of anything useful had begun to frustrate Sara as she grew ever more annoyed at processing the same corner of the room three times.

"No blood. No hairs," Sara said with a tone showing she was clearly fed up, "quite a few prints though, although seeing as this is a dressing room I wouldn't be surprised if all of them had a reason to be in here. What do you make of this though?"

She pointed out something on the vanity table and Ray went over to examine for himself.

"A pair of hand prints," he recalled, "but, they're the wrong way wrong. The right hand's clearly on the left hand side and vice versa. Size of the hands suggests both prints are from the same person and are possibly consistent of someone leaning back on the vanity table?"

"Or, maybe she wasn't alone. Private dressing room, ideal place to get your rocks off, things get a bit steamy, she needs a little support."

"That finding seems plausible."

"Right, I think Catherine might need a hand processing the prop room," Sara told Ray, "you could go give her a hand and I'll take what we've got back to the lab, see if I can get anything useful from it."

"Good idea, I have a feeling we'll be more successful there."

* * *

><p>"So let me explain the situation to you, Martin. We all know that you killed Lorna..."<p>

"I didn't mean to!" Martin slammed on the table, eyes filled with anger and sadness glaring at Brass.

"Whoa whoa, don't jump the gun," said Brass calmly holding out his hands, "just let me finish. We all know you killed Lorna, maybe by accident, we don't know, we're still investigating. Unfortunately for you, we've got nothing to present to the jury that says that you weren't responsible for her death. Now see the jury, they're not the brightest bulbs in the box, but they have six hundred eye witness statements, and video footage of the performance, which shows you shooting Lorna. Now here's your chance to give your statement, what's gonna make us think you didn't intend to kill her?"

Martin Salisbury contemplated for a few moments. Brass noticed the guy was nervous, sweating like a dog in a Chinese restaurant, his hands were shaking and not once did he make eye contact. Usually these were signs of a guilty person but he knew that this case was different; they all knew that he had killed her but then again he could be telling the truth, he could have been unintentionally covering up the dirty man's work. He almost felt sorry for the guy but he knew that he'd have to play him just like every other person who sat opposite him.

After a few seconds thought he replied softly, "because we're best friends."

Brass smiled meekly before replying, "because you're friends. Well, I know friends, I have a few myself, and I know that friends sometimes fall out. And I also know that friends sometimes kill each other..."

"Lorna and I were more than friends! We were more than best friends! We were going to travel the country, even the world! We were going to set up our own theatre school in California, advance our careers..."

"Yeah okay, you two were close, but that's not enough to say you didn't do it. Oh and you're an actor, how do I know everything you just told me isn't a lie?"

"I can't believe what you're saying..."

"Well that's funny, cos I'm having trouble believing you myself," Brass retorted. He noticed that Martin was starting to turn a deep shade of red and was visibly shaking. Worried that he might lawyer up, he decided to move the interrogation into a different direction, "okay, let's move on. How did the real gun end up on stage?"

"I don't know," Martin replied having calmed down slightly, "that's the prop department's responsibility. All I know is that the gun is kept in the table drawer for most of the first act until it gets to the right scene. I assume they put it there just before the show begins."

"Okay, fair enough, but before you fired, did it not occur to you that you were holding a real gun? I mean, there's an obvious difference between your standard pistol and a stage prop."

"No, the stage prop is actually supposed to be a modified standard pistol; I honestly noticed no difference between the two."

"Apart from the one you used went boom?"

Martin nodded slowly and then went silent. He looked glum, exhausted, this didn't look like a guilty man in Brass' eyes. He knew that unless he got a confession, they'd need some more concrete evidence to detain him any further, and the prospect of a confession was looking extremely unlikely. Brass too was keen to get back to the theatre again; there were still questions to be asked around the crime scene, and he knew he hadn't actually been telling Martin the truth they had video footage, that was only based on the assumption it had been filmed illegally and he had nothing left to go on.

"Okay Martin, you're free to go, but don't go far, even if you're not our killer we're going to need you for paperwork, testimonies and legal crap like that."

Martin got up in silence and left with the same depressed expression on his face that he had arrived with. Before retiring to his office, Brass quietly whispered to the observing officer:

"Keep an eye on him. Make sure he doesn't do anything stupid."

* * *

><p>TBC<p> 


	2. Part 2 of 4

"Evan Morris? I'm Catherine Willows from the crime lab; I need to ask you a few questions."

"Sure thing," the manager of the prop department replied nervously. He was a tall, skinny man. He looked tired and unshaven, sporting dark rings under his eyes, and his hair was an untamed blond mop. Catherine noticed he looked a little shifty, trying not to look directly at her yet he seemed also to unsuccessfully hide his nerves.

"Martin Salisbury claims that the gun was kept in the table drawer seen on-stage and that it's put there at the start of the show. Can you confirm this?"

"Y-yes," he stammered, "the prop gets stored here from t-the first act and w-we usually p-put it back about an hour before the show begins."

"An hour? That would be more than enough time to switch the guns, especially if you knew where to find it." She gave Evan an intimidating glance.

"W-what you think I did it?"

"We can't prove that. Yet. So where is the prop at the moment?"

"Urrm... I-I don't know, it was never found after the shooting."

"Well it's a good thing we're here. We're good at finding things." She whispered to him.

"Hello Catherine," Ray had just arrived to assist, "Sara told me you needed some help processing."

"Actually Ray, I've already done most of the room already and found nothing. I've had a look at the stage as well, no prints, blood, shoe treads or anything useful. You might want to have a look at those lockers over there; I haven't had a chance to check them."

"Urrm," Evan piped up, "don't you need a warrant or something to look inside them..."

"Why do you want a warrant if you've got nothing to hide?" Catherine asked him in an overly sweet manner.

"Y-yeah I guess so, I'll open them," he replied, conceding to their request and proceeding to open up the end locker marked with his name.

"Well, this is interesting," Ray said taking as he took photo and bent down to pick up something.

"What have you got Ray?" She called out.

He held up what looked like a pistol, clutching the grip with his fingertips. The pistol itself could have been mistaken for your authentic Glock 19, only there were noticeable disparities to the keen eyes of the CSI. Catherine noticed the colour begin to drain from Evan Morris' face and she gave him a look of arousing suspicion, causing him to quake nervously.

"Looks like we found our not-so-smoking gun."

* * *

><p>"Blood from the fabric came back."<p>

Nick looked up as Greg strode into the break room accompanied by a slightly dusty case file. Greg slid the file across the table to him.

"DNA got a hit in a cold case from last year," Greg continued, "don't know if you remember it. Suzanne Hopkins, nineteen years old, murdered July the second of last year. Autopsy concluded COD was exsanguination due to a stab wound directly to the heart. Doc Robbins also found a diamond fragment in the vic's mouth, skin under the fingernails and high blood alcohol content. We found no murder weapon, had a few suspects but no evidence to connect them to the crime, body was found in her own home just off the Summerlin Parkway, again nothing was found to suggest she was killed there. No developments meant that the case got pushed to the bottom of the pile, eventually went cold."

"Yeah I remember this case," Nick said as he flicked through the file, "with regards to the possible murder weapon, Doc's reported that the entry wound has pointed edges, either side of it, suggests it was caused by a double bladed weapon."

"A dagger, perhaps?"

"Possibly, but that's not a whole lot of use if we don't have any leads at all. I'm sure there're thousands of daggers in Vegas alone."

"But there are not so many distributors of your soily trace around here," a voice called from behind Nick. He turned around and saw it belonged to Hodges, who had an expression planted on his face which radiated an extortionate level of smugness, "I found traces of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium."

"Plant fertiliser," Greg replied, sounding unsurprised by the results.

"Yes well done Einstein," Hodges retorted, "but there's more, the sample collected from your runaway fabric has a significantly higher concentration of nitrogen, generally used to make one's lawn a little greener," he began rambling, quietly adding, "Mother liked to keep the garden looking as green as possible."

"Where is this going Hodges?" Nick said with a slight annoyance in his voice.

"Hold on, I'm getting there. Now there aren't any factories in Nevada which distribute this particular kind of fertiliser but I got a hit on a company in La Paz County, Arizona, 'Miracle Lawns'."

"Miracle Lawns? Hold on a sec," Nick said, frantically flipping through the case file, "aha! Frank LeTorneau, driver for Miracle Lawns, lives two doors down from the victim. Daughter was good friends with the vic as well. We spoke to him last time but couldn't tie him towards any physical evidence or anything to suggest he was at the Hopkins house."

"Well I say we go and pay Mr LeTorneau a visit," Greg remarked, giving Nick a wink he added, "I'll drive."

"Happy for you to, dude, I'm not the one OD-ing on caffeine."

"Ahem," Hodges cleared his throat, halting the two CSIs as they prepared to leave, "I believe you're missing a little praise to the guy who just cracked your case."

The two CSIs looked at each other for a moment and then Nick smiled, walked over to Hodges and gave him an affectionate pat on the shoulder, "well done, Einstein."

The two CSIs left with smirks on their faces, leaving a perplexed Hodges standing alone in the break room.

* * *

><p>"Care to guess what your victim's COD is?" Al Robbins casually asked Sara.<p>

"Errm, gunshot wound to the chest?" She replied, looking down at Lorna McAlman's lifeless body with pity. Even after staring at hundreds of bodies lying in Doc Robbins' 'chop-shop', she always felt immense sadness whenever a new case came around.

"It's tragic when my job is made this easy. Your bullet entered here," he indicated to the bullet hole in the middle of her chest, "it grazed the number four rib, dissected the aorta and eventually embedded itself in the spinal cord. I extracted it for you."

He held up the plastic container which housed the bullet and passed it to Sara who examined it. "9mm," she reported, "consistent with the Glock 19 we recovered from the scene. Did you find anything else?"

"David found nothing in her external examination, just a lot of make-up. Hardly a surprise, seeing as there's no evidence of a struggle on stage. Internally, aside the obvious bullet intrusions, she was a pretty healthy human being. However, I did find minute traces of vomit lining the oesophagus."

"She puked?"

"Yes, but not in the immediate hours before death at least; her stomach contents showed she had a lasagne, garlic bread and salad shortly before taking to the stage. I sent a sample of her blood to tox anyway." He looked at Lorna's face again and sighed, "you know, Mrs Robbins and I had booked tickets to see this show Sunday night, I'm now going to have to find another way to keep her quiet for three hours."

"You know, when Grissom doesn't want me bugging him, he usually just sits in front of some soapy TV programme. Even though he hates them, he can just zone out and think of... well, whatever. It works though; I would not be seen dead watching those types of shows."

"It's just a shame Mrs Robbins is a big fan of them," he said sadly, "oh and one more thing I should mention about your vic. I did note some slight vaginal abrasions but she wasn't raped, I'd put that down towards recent rough sex. I didn't find any seminal fluids though."

"There was no condom in the trash, it was empty, but I guess that supports my theory with regards to the unusual hand prints I found on the victim's dressing table."

"I'm sorry there's not a lot I can help you with regarding this case."

"It's a good thing we've still got the physical evidence to rely on then," she gave Doc Robbins a smile and walked out of the morgue. She breathed a small sigh of relief as she immediately felt herself warming up having left the autopsy room, heading back to her usual roost to start examining the evidence.

Just as she ascended the top of the stairs her phone rang, "Sidle."

"Hey Sara, it's Catherine, I need you to come down to PD, we've got another suspect."

"No problem, I'll see you there," she replied before hanging up and changing her destination to the Police Department.

* * *

><p>The last time Nick remembered being in this part of town was on that fateful midsummer's night, statistically, this was supposed to be the safest part of Las Vegas. 'Little comfort to Suzanne Hopkins,' he thought to himself as Greg parked up at their destination. Morning was upon them and Nick was already starting to feel the arid climate get to him, he wished he'd taken up the offer of coffee before they had left now. Reluctantly leaving the comfortable land of air conditioning, he dragged himself out the car and headed towards the door of the LeTorneaus.<p>

Nick noticed the 'Miracle Lawns' truck parked alongside a smaller car on the driveway, before he tapped on the door three times. No answer. 'Saturday morning,' he thought to himself. He knocked three more times and this time called out, "Frank LeTorneau, LVPD, open up!"

The door opened to reveal a grumpy looking man clothed in a dressing gown, he could barely keep his eyes open and was far from clean shaven, it was obvious to Nick that he'd just been dragged out of bed. LeTorneau gave out a small grunt, which may have sounded like something on the lines of "what?"

"Good morning Mr LeTorneau, I'm Nick Stokes, this is Greg Sanders, we're from the crime lab investigating the death of Suzanne Hopkins from last year."

"We're going to need to ask you a few questions," Greg continued, pulling out a notebook and pen.

"I thought ye already caught the guy?" LeTorneau mumbled back.

"We're investigating a new lead into the case."

"Now Mr LeTorneau, you deliver fertiliser for 'Miracle Lawns' is that correct?" Nick asked to which LeTorneau nodded. Nick then gave him a photo to examine. "Can you explain the origins of this cloth? We found traces of fertiliser identical to the type you deliver on this particular cloth."

"Yeah, I put them cloths in the back of me truck, stops the crap gettin' everywhere."

"Okay, now explain to us how Suzanne Hopkins' blood got on a cloth with traces of 'Miracle Lawns' fertiliser."

LeTorneau straightened up suddenly upon hearing Nick's comments and he noticeably began to raise his voice. "Oh come on, anyone coulda nabbed it from the back of me truck, I'm losin' them things all the time and I aint the only 'Miracle Lawns' driver livin' round these parts."

"Actually," Greg piped up, "you are."

"Well that don't mean I killed the girl, does it?"

"Well if you could just let us take a look at..."

"Are you kiddin'? You come bangin' on me front door at this godly hour an' accuse me of somethin' I didn' do which happened a year ago. Now, you're tryin' to snoop aroun' my house, or my truck, you know, you ain't stepping near my place again without a warrant."

"Mr LeTor..."

"Anymore questions you have will be asked to my attorney." With that, he walked inside and slammed the door.

"Nice guy," Greg said sarcastically, "sounds to me like he's hiding something."

"Yeah, problem is we can't prove it," Nick replied sadly walking back towards the car.

"You know, I've been looking at some new digs, even had a look around here, it doesn't strike me as an area a delivery boy can afford to live in."

"Oh, and you can afford it?" Nick smirked at him.

"Well, no. Not yet anyway. Maybe if I ever get around to publishing my book."

"Excuse me a moment," a high-pitched, feeble sounding voice came from behind. The two CSIs turned to see an elderly woman walking towards them from across the road, "are you two here because of that sheet I sent over?"

"You're our mysterious Sherlock?" Nick asked her, surprised.

The woman nodded, "Me and my husband, Larry saw it on the driveway after we returned from bingo. Must have blown in from somewhere but it looked all bloody and torn so I got Larry to drive it round to LVPD."

"Well we've managed to relate it back to a homicide which occurred on this street last year. You've been an excellent help ma'am."

"Oh is that to do with Suzie's death? Poor girl was so lovely, and so was her friend, Katrina I think her name was. When they were younger they used to come over and help me get rid of my weeds and I'd bring them fresh lemonade and cookies out for them. Even when they grew out of that, they'd always smile and say hi when they passed by the house. I've only seen Katrina once since Suzie's death, poor girl she must have lost a huge part of her, especially so soon after her mother died."

"We appreciate your help ma'am and we'll let you know if there are any further developments," Nick called out to her as she continued wandering down the street. "So Greg, what do you reckon? Freak gust of wind blows the cloth from LeTorneau's truck onto the neighbour's driveway?"

"Sounds plausible," Greg replied, "but why would LeTorneau keep the cloth for so long? Why not get rid of it?" He noticed that Nick had got his phone out and started tapping in a number. "You don't think that's good enough for a warrant do you? Like the guy said, that cloth could have been taken by anyone."

"Maybe, but it's worth a shot. I've been granted warrants for far less evidence; you just got to call the right judge."

* * *

><p>Evan Morris sat alone nervously in the interrogation room. He was agitated that was for sure, his hands were shaking, so were his feet, tapping excessively against the cold marble flooring. It had been a tough night for everyone at the production and it seemed like it was never going to end for him. Was this the end? Was he going to spend the rest of his life behind bars, all because of a stupid prop? Even if he did get out of here, what was there left to live for? Lorna was gone, Lorna, the only woman he had truly loved, taken out of his life so viciously and cruelly. What of his job? Where had he gone wrong? He was responsible for making sure everything was correctly in its place, but he had failed, Lorna was dead because he hadn't done his job properly and he could never forgive himself for it.<p>

Catherine watched the man fidget behind the glass, a sense of pity beginning to grow inside her. She knew all too well what it was like to be on the opposite side of the table: Scared. Isolated. Lost. She saw Sara approaching her and passed her some photos of her findings.

"We found the prop gun in Mr Morris' locker," Catherine began explaining as Sara began sifting through the photos, "he claims he has no idea how it got there. I've already swabbed and fingerprinted him."

"Well, he could possibly be telling the truth, maybe someone was trying to drag him and Martin Salisbury down."

"Two birds with one stone." Sara nodded.

"Well," Catherine continued, "it's possible that he also could have accidentally placed the real gun in the drawer before the performance. Result of negligent behaviour?"

"Yes, but how does that explain the prop left in the locker. There should only have been one gun, surely he would have noticed if there was another."

"Well, somebody knows."

Catherine walked into the room, Sara closely followed behind her. The two of them took their seats opposite Evan Morris, who nervously looked at each woman in turn before resorting back to twiddling his thumbs. There was a short silence before Catherine began questioning.

"So Mr Morris, explain how we found the gun prop inside your locker."

Evan pondered slightly, his eyebrows rising and falling, his mouth twitching, he was beginning to sweat so that the little light in the room bounced off his forehead, illuminating the fear in his eyes.

"I don't know." He mumbled. There was another short silence before Sara spoke.

"Talk us through what you did with the prop before the show."

Evan swallowed hard before recounting, "I arrived on set at one yesterday afternoon. I um, checked to see whether all the props were accounted for, which they were. Then I um... I um... I... I..."

"Did you place the prop in the drawer where it was supposed to be?"

"I um... yes. About two hours before the show started."

"Did you replace the gun during those two hours?"

"I um... yes, I mean no, no I didn't. Why do you think I would want to kill Lorna? I loved her."

"Loved her, in what way?" Catherine raised her eyebrow with suspicion, "Girlfriend? Fling? Crush?"

"I um... I loved her, but I um don't think she felt the same way. I was going to ask her to dinner the other night, after one of the shows but she was with someone else, I mean, I heard raised voices coming from her dressing room, she was arguing with someone, something about going away and then, they lessened, I think I heard her say something about she was staying and then, then..."

"What happened afterwards?"

"They began, began, urrm, making love," Evan began to fidget awkwardly, "I um, could hear it through the door." Sara and Catherine exchanged a glance.

"So what did you do after that? Decide to go and pop a bullet to her head out of jealousy?"

"No, no I didn't, I went home afterwards and I um... went to bed."

"When did you say this happened?" Sara asked.

"Err, couple of nights ago, first night we were in Vegas, I think it was after Wednesday's show."

There was a short moment of silence before it was interrupted by the shrill beeps of Catherine's ringtone. Looking at the caller ID she answered the phone, "Willows."

"Hey Catherine," a familiar southern accent echoed down the line, "it's Bobby, only print I found on your pistol was a partial on the trigger, I presume that would be your shooter."

"Okay, do you have anything else?"

"Yes, I do, actually the reason I wanted to call you. I ran the serial number and got a hit, your gun was purchased in Reno five days ago to a Mr Evan Morris." Catherine's eyes began to widen as the case seemed to be beginning to fit together.

"Nice work Bobby, thanks." She hung up the phone and faced Evan with arousing suspicion. Without returning to her seat she told him, "the gun that was used to kill Lorna McAlman; it was bought by yourself in Reno five days ago. Do you know what I think? Lorna blew you off didn't she and you got angry, so you bought the gun, you were going to blow her brains out there and then."

"No. No! That's not true!" Evan protested.

"But you were clever, plant the gun during the performance, you could pin the blame on Martin Salisbury and you'd just disappear off the radar..."

"I didn't do it I swear! I never even noticed that my gun was missing. I bought the gun because we were going to Vegas and I knew I might need it, Vegas is a rough place and I wanted protection." 'Well, he got something right,' Catherine thought to herself. "I did my job, put the prop in the drawer, went out for a bite, came back just before show-time."

"Can anyone verify that?" Sara asked.

"Um, yes, I have a receipt in my wallet from LuckyGoChicken just down the street."

"Well, that's plausible, assuming we can believe the rest of your story."

There was a long pause following Sara's last words. Catherine could see that the nerves had dissipated and his anxiety had changed to anger. He was a difficult person to read and they knew there wasn't enough physical evidence to convict him yet.

Catherine opened her mouth to speak but she was cut off by Evan, who spoke in a different, surprisingly deep voice, "I want a lawyer."

* * *

><p>TBC<p>

A/N - Hope you enjoyed Part 2. Part 3 will be up sometime tomorrow. :)


	3. Part 3 of 4

Ray felt exhausted as he drifted through the lab, his destination set for the break room. The case had not particularly been too taxing, the scenes in comparison to many he had processed before hadn't taken nearly as long but the case itself appeared to be going nowhere now that Evan Morris had lawyered up.

Ray sighed and took a seat on the couch, thinking back to a time where work seemed regular. No early morning call outs. No dead bodies. No overtime. Proper vacation days. At one point during his career he'd considered going back to the university but then he realised how much of a difference he was making, the satisfaction he got every time they caught the guy. Fitting in with the team had not been easy, they had already been an established team, and they were also still grieving at the loss of one of their friends as well as their supervisor. Things got easier for him though and although he sometimes felt he distanced himself apart from them, he knew they still respected him and could count on him.

"You know I've got some pills for that," a voice from behind him spoke causing Ray to jump slightly, realising he must have dozed off. He turned around and saw that it was Hodges.

"No thank you Hodges, I was just taking some time to mull over my thoughts," Ray replied.

"You know, that's the sort of thing that Grissom used to do. There'd just be times where he would blank out and completely lose himself into his imagination, enter a world of his own. You know I always wondered what was going through his head during those moments. I guess it would be on the lines of 'people really are extraordinary creatures, how our very nature is derived from the activities of insects' or maybe he hears classical music going round his head, or maybe he was thinking 'why am I paying Sanders so much these days'..."

"Is there something you wanted to tell me, Hodges?" Ray interrupted, having ignored Hodges' ramblings, something he had gotten accustomed to doing.

"Actually, Mandy sent me here; she said she's got the results of your dressing room prints."

"Okay, thanks Hodges." With a little bit of self-determination, Ray got himself onto his feet and headed for Mandy's lab. As he traipsed along the corridors he got the feeling that someone else was following him.

"So what type of music do you like, Doctor Langston?"

"Hodges, I'm working," Ray said wearily. Hodges, finally getting the picture that Ray wanted to be left alone scuttled off to look at the same fragment of porcelain he had identified two hours earlier. Ray spotted Mandy, he asked, "so what did you find in the dressing room then."

"Oh, hi Ray," she looked up from the computer screen and retrieved a file from her left. Opening it she reported, "I found three different fingerprint donors in the victim's dressing room. The first was Lorna McAlman, the victim, who's also the donor of the odd set of hand prints which Sara noted. The second set of prints belonged to a Stacy Fillipio, it says in her file she now works there as a make-up artist and hairdresser."

"How come she's in the system?"

"Used to be a showgirl, they all get put in, unlike most however, she's actually updated her information. Only two of your prints came back as hers, both found on the vanity tables."

"Okay, so I reckon it's safe to rule her out."

"Right, which brings us to our last person, brace yourself for it, a Mr Quinz Martinez Algora Risetti."

"The Stage Manager? Surely he shouldn't be in her dressing room."

"Yes, and he's got a pretty dodgy record to go with his dodgy name too." Mandy passed over the file for Ray to read.

"Let's see, we have assault, trespassing and numerous counts of sexual harassment. Thank you Mandy, I'll get Brass on to this guy."

* * *

><p>For the second time that morning, Frank LeTorneau had been disturbed by knocking at the door, cursing under his breath he reluctantly abandoned his breakfast, walked through his hallway and opened the door to find the two CSIs standing there, only this time they appeared to be joined by a police escort, a tow truck and their kits.<p>

"Oh well if it isn't Knuckles and Nash," he grunted, annoyed at being interrupted from his daily routine, "I though' I told you, you ain't steppin' a foot in my house."

Greg held up a piece of paper in his hand and said, "well, we have an invitation," after which he passed the warrant to a furious LeTorneau and he walked into the house, deliberately emphasising his first step into it.

Nick followed suit adding to LeTorneau on his way in, "also, we're taking the truck with us." He gave a whistle to the driver of the tow, gesturing him to take LeTorneau's truck away. "So, you gonna give us a tour?"

Nick chuckled to himself as he walked into the hallway, closely followed by a watchful and enraged LeTorneau. Nick was surprised by how well-kept the place was, the floor looked freshly vacuumed, the room smelled of various fragrances, the paintings mounted on the walls, were all neatly aligned and projected an air of sophistication which appeared to clash with the personality of Frank LeTorneau. Nick remembered speaking to him the year before; he had recently lost his wife, a rather prosperous entrepreneur, to cancer. 'I guess he wanted to keep her presence in the home with him, the sophistication was a part of her,' he thought to himself.

Nick followed Greg into a room which appeared to resemble an art gallery of sorts. On the far side, there was a row of exquisite paintings like those mounted in the hallway. A sculpture of an angel carrying a baby aloft decorated the right hand side of the room and a grand piano was located near the entrance of the room.

"Nick," Greg called him over and shone his flashlight at a particular item on display. A dagger, but it was more than just a bog-standard dagger, the hilt had been encrusted with jewels and gold. The blade itself reflected rays of sun creeping through the blinds so that it lit up the whole room.

"That's a nice dagger you got there," Nick looked round at LeTorneau who had followed them through the house.

"My father found that," LeTorneau commented, "from the body of a Jap he gunned down himself. Got every kind of jewel you can think of, emeralds, sapphires, rubies ..."

"And diamond?" Greg finished for him. "Funny, we found a fragment of diamond in Suzanne Hopkins' mouth."

LeTorneau simply nodded and kept calm until he noticed that Nick and Greg had opened their kits and had put on their latex gloves he began to panic, "you know that thing's real valuable to us; it's like our most prized possession."

Nick had already swabbed the blade, upon adding the hydrogen peroxide, the swab turned pink rapidly. "Well, this thing's real valuable to us too. It looks like this is our murder weapon."

The colour from LeTorneau's face began to rapidly diminish and he was beginning to get overcome by a sense of dread. "I um, cut my finger on it when was cleaning it."

"Okay," this time Greg began to talk, brandishing a bottle which looked like bleach, "we'll buy that, for now, well, until we try this out. You know what this is? It's luminal spray, any blood you've tried to scrub away will glow in the dark when you spray it with this. Nick honey, could you kill the light please?"

Nick completely shut the blinds plunging the room into near darkness. Greg then proceeded to spray the luminal around the room, initially there appeared to be no reaction before Greg noticed the rug in the centre of the room. Tossing it aside, he began to spray in the area covered by the rug and the wooden boards began to glow an eerie blue, encompassing an area about the size of a large dog.

"That must have been a pretty nasty cut," Greg remarked getting up with a satisfied smile. LeTorneau remained speechless.

"Book him, Mitch," Nick told the officer who silently stood on the sidelines, "Greg, if you stay here and process downstairs, I'll go back to the lab and see if I can get anything else from the truck."

"Sure thing."

"Come on sunshine, let's go," Officer Mitchell said to LeTorneau as he took the man through the hallway back towards the street.

Just as he was leaving, Nick heard footsteps running down the stairs at a rapidly; he instinctively reached for his gun holster but quickly retracted once he saw who it was.

"What's going on here?" A woman in her early twenties stood before him. Nick noticed her bright blue eyes were opened wide in alarm, she looked as if she was half-way through straightening her blonde bob and that she was wearing more make-up than Marilyn Manson, or another one of Greg's favourite musicians.

"I'm going to need you to step outside a minute, Miss LeTorneau, we're taking your dad to PD," The woman's eyes widened further, "I'll explain everything to you on the way."

* * *

><p>"Charlie? Charlie? Are you there Charlie?" A woman called out to the empty crowd.<p>

"Olivia," the man said weakly, "I've been looking all over for you; I knew you'd be there for me."

"Oh Charlie, I'd be there for you no matter what." The two came together and embraced passionately.

"We better go, we're going to miss the train," the man said hurriedly.

"Wait, we've just got time for this." The woman placed her arms around his neck, they mutually knew what it meant and the two of them began to move towards each other for the kiss...

"Stop! Stop! Stop!" A wheezy sounding voice echoed around the auditorium as the couple quickly broke away from their kiss abruptly. "You call that acting? Where's the passion? Where's the desire? Where's the lust? Come on I need to feel it, and so does your audience tonight, I've already lost two of my finest actors and seventy five percent of tonight's ticket sales! You need to bring it back and if you two can't get any chemistry this show will be shutting down! Now get back and..."

Risetti's words were cut off as he saw two people walking down the steps of the auditorium towards the stage. The man on the right was tall; he looked athletic and had a stern expression on his face. The man to his left was quite a bit shorter, a lot older and was beginning to show his age. He too, had an equally, if not more stern expression on his face. Risetti instantly recognised the man on the left and he began to panic, this was it, the show's over and he could only do what his instincts told him.

Run.

Jim Brass sighed and turned to his colleague, "go get him, Lou."

Lou Vartann did not even need to hesitate as he leapt into action, sprinting down the steps three, no, four at a time and in a matter of seconds he was on the main stage. He saw his target scuttle behind the curtains to the backstage area. Whilst Vartann had speed to his advantage, he had no sense of navigation as he negotiated along narrow corridors, up and down numerous staircases, occasionally looking right to check in the dressing rooms. He stopped to catch his breath for one moment, with the thought that somebody will be outside to catch him, until he heard a small crash, directly from the prop room.

Instinctively, he headed towards the source of the noise, round tight bends not once to take in anything he might have passed until he reached the prop room. Various items were strewed all other the floor: hats, coats, various stools and even a grandfather clock. Across the room he heard a knocking from an adjacent room. Thinking the suspect might now be armed; Vartann extracted his pistol from his holster and darted into the room. There was nobody inside but the sound of knocking grew louder. Various papers had been brushed on the floor and the room had been left a mess.

Knock. Knock. Across the room there was another door, but this lead to a staircase and Vartann could clearly see that at the top of the stairs was his prey, his escape ironically hindered by a pair of locked emergency exit doors. "Don't do anything weird," he called out to Risetti as he got closer to him to cuff him.

As he reached out his hand however, Risetti tried one more last means of escape, lunging out of the way of Vartann. Somewhere along the way, he had misjudged his footing and the man let out a piercing yelp as he tumbled down the staircase coming to an abrupt rest on the concrete floor, nose face first.

Trying to hold back a laugh, Vartann sighed and casually walked down the stairs and quickly cuffed Risetti. He said quietly into Risetti's ear, "one day. One day, I'll say those words and they'll just put their hands up and let me do my job."

* * *

><p>"Okay, Mr Risetti," Brass said disgruntled, "now I'm all for keeping fit, but I'm not as athletic as I used to be and as far as I know innocent men don't run."<p>

Mr Risetti opened his mouth to talk but was interrupted by the man on his right, "Mr Risetti, I advise you to remain silent throughout this interrogation. Tell me Captain Brass, what evidence do you have which puts my client at the scene of the crime? Because six hundred people saw a Mr Martin Salisbury shoot the victim..."

"The actual crime in this instance was not the shooting, but the replacement of a prop pistol with a loaded Glock 19. As Production Stage Manager, you have access to the prop room, to Evan Morris' office; it's possible that your client could have done the act himself."

"Evan is sloppy, he's always leaving his stuff lying around," Risetti piped up.

"Also," the attorney spoke, " you have no evidence which puts the gun in my client's hand."

Brass took a deep sigh, "No, we don't. But there is something we want to know from your client. The autopsy identified Lorna McAlman showed signs of recent sexual activity, and we found your prints all over her dressing room. Can you explain why you were in her dressing room?"

Risetti grinned and said, "I'm sure I'm not the only one who's been inside that dressing room..."

"No, you're not actually. We also found Stacy Fillipio's prints, you know, her hairdresser, I think she's got a good reason to be there."

"Well, maybe she preferred fooling around with the ladies," Risetti retorted. The room was silent for a moment as Brass and even Risetti's lawyer gave him a look of intense disapproval. "Alright, alright, I admit, I had sex with Lorna, but she agreed!"

"Mr Risetti, I strongly recommend you remain quiet..."

"No, no, Arthur, I've got this," Risetti held his hands up to which Arthur groaned quietly and sunk his head into his hands, "I had sex with Lorna, I didn't kill her though. She was going to be leaving the show after our time in LA and I didn't want her to, the show has been a phenomenal success and that was mainly down to Lorna. She's become a star. We were planning on touring the East Coast next year and I couldn't have Lorna leaving the production."

"So you had sex with her to convince her to stay, that sounds like a great deal," Brass said sarcastically, laughing to himself about the prospect that someone would willingly offer themselves to the guy.

"No, she agreed and came onto me. Said she hadn't been loved for a long time..."

"That's because you keep dragging her away from her husband."

"Husband?" It was Risetti's turn to laugh now, "Lorna never married, in fact the only family she had was her brother and niece, they lived in Sacramento."

The more he talked to the guy, the more he doubted that the guy actually had any motive to kill the woman. Sure, he was a slimeball but it didn't seem to make sense for him to do it.

"Captain Brass, let me put this into perspective. Tonight's show was fully booked, all six hundred and twenty-three seats occupied. Figures this morning showed that now I ain't even got a hundred and fifty, and even less for tomorrow's show. I am facing the prospect of having to cancel this show all together. What would I benefit from killing Lorna?"

Brass took a deep breath. What the guy said made perfectly logical sense and realistically Brass had nothing to hold him on, there was no evidence to imply he was ultimately responsible, "okay, Mr Risetti, you're free to go. But, I highly recommend you don't go sleeping round with your subordinates, it's not very good at making you friends."

Risetti gave him a smug smirk before slowly getting up and leaving the room, escorted by the accompanying officer. Arthur sighed, rolled his eyes and shortly followed suit, although Brass knew that it wasn't aimed at him. He himself scratched his head momentarily before leaving the room to be met by Ray who had been watching from the observation room. "Sorry Ray, we had nothing else to hold him on."

"I understand," Ray added meekly. "This has been one frustrating case."

"Tell me about it, few leads, all have gone nowhere and hardly any useful evidence. Even if we do find a guy we've got barely anything for court, and I have pretty much all my detectives still interpreting eyewitness accounts. The Ecklie's gonna roast us."

* * *

><p>Nick walked into the AV lab to find Archie pouring over a bunch of numbers, letters and complicated formulae on his computer screen, "I've extracted all the routes that he's put into his SatNav. Your guy has made seventy-two round trips to Parker, Arizona in the past eighteen months." Archie told Nick without averting his eyes.<p>

"I presume each route is dated?" Nick asked to which Archie nodded, "Okay could you identify whether LeTorneau was in Vegas on July the second of last year?"

"I can try," Archie responded, tapping various things on his keyboard which looked like gibberish to Nick. "Here we go. I can confirm that he was indeed in Vegas that night, returned from Arizona that very morning actually."

"Okay, do we know whether we actually made those routes, just having the data alone won't stand up in court."

"Well, I compared the mileage covered by the vehicle and the SatNav. About ten miles out but that could be down to deviance from the route, I think it's pretty solid."

"Okay, thanks Archie," Nick left Archie to process and made his way over to PD but was aware of someone calling out behind him.

"Nick, Nick!" He turned around to see Hodges running towards him, "soil trace you found in the back of Frank LeTorneau's truck, exact match to the soil found on the cloth presumed to wrap up the victim in."

He handed Nick a file, and Nick patted him on the back, "Good work, Hodges," he tried for a second time to make his way over to interrogate LeTorneau only to bump into Greg, who had just returned from the scene.

"Nick," he began explaining rapidly as the two of them walked along the corridor, "one of the jewels encrusted on the dagger I saw was fractured, looks to be diamond. I managed to extract epithelials from the hilt and running them through DNA."

"Okay Greg, I need to get..."

"No, no wait there's more," the two of them paused for a moment. "I found some circular blood drops heading into the kitchen from the main crime scene, gravitational blood drops I reckon. We found a large patch of blood in the gallery; I presume that's where Suzanna Hopkins died, so these drops could suggest that the killer got injured as well."

"Did you get any DNA from it?"

"Sadly, no, I couldn't see any visible dried blood and it looks like the remainder has been compromised. Did you get anything from LeTorneau?"

"I'm on his way to speak to him now."

Greg gave him a look of surprise, "nobody's talked to him yet?"

"It's just us two working the case. Pretty much every available detective is working that theatre shooting or Swing's triple homicide, cold cases always get lowest priority. You go and see if you can get anything from DNA, I need to chat to LeTorneau."

Greg nodded and walked off whilst Nick headed once more to PD. A smile began to emerge on his face, they were close to closing it he could feel it, but this particular case was more satisfactory knowing that although it had been a year yet they were still going to catch the guy.

* * *

><p>"Okay Mr LeTorneau, this is what we've got," Nick directly looked into the eyes of Suzanne's killer, it was his way of intimidating them, he could read the fear, the brutality within them, but Mr LeTorneau's eyes showed little of it, if anything, they showed remorse. "We have a girl who lives two doors down from you dead with a stab wound; we have blood all over your gallery floor. We found blood on your prized dagger." As he revealed each aspect of the case to LeTorneau, he slid across a crime scene photograph supporting each point. "And that's not all folks! We have a bloody sheet with trace of 'Miracle Lawns' fertiliser, you know, the stuff you transport, and we found that same stuff in the back of your truck. Oh and get this, the blood found on that sheet, is a match to Suzanne Hopkins, the victim and your daughter's best friend."<p>

Throughout the entire interrogation, LeTorneau had remained silent. He made only slight movements, whether it be to scratch his head, stroke his goatee or to tap on the edge of the table. There was a long silence, a silence only broken by LeTorneau's attorney, who Nick had deliberately ignored, clearing his throat.

"I did it," LeTorneau croaked, breaking the silence. His attorney gave him a look of warning, begging him not to confess. Nick waited for him to elaborate his story, to explain his reasoning, his method, his true motives, but LeTorneau never said anything again, he averted his eyes down and said nothing.

Nick, about to order LeTorneau's arrest suddenly heard his phone ringing, "Stokes."

"Nick, it's Greg," the voice on the other side was talking at a very fast pace and expressed a sense of excitement, Nick knew too well that this meant there was something important, "I looked through the case file again, there was something we missed from autopsy, the vic had some skin under her nails and it was noted she had defensive wounds. Well I matched it to the epithelials found on the dagger."

"Okay good," Nick said uncertainly, he didn't like where this was going, he'd just got a confession and now it looked like the evidence was going to compromise that.

"There were two epithelial contributions on the dagger, one belonged to the vic and I got another, but Nick, they don't belong to Frank LeTorneau. It came back XX. Female. Now here's the cherry on the cake, I compared the DNA to Frank, her DNA shows her to have half of his alleles."

* * *

><p>TBC<p>

A/N - Thanks for reading everyone, the final part of this story will be up tomorrow! Hope you enjoyed Part 3. :)


	4. Part 4 of 4

"Okay everyone, we really need to get this case solved soon. We're back to square one and the DA is nagging us for a conviction, hopefully we might find something with a bit of restored energy," Catherine spoke to her team as they poured over photos, papers and evidence in the layout room.

After failing to get a conviction with Risetti, Catherine had sent everyone home for some rest. The case was frustrating for her alone and she could tell it was taking its toll on Sara and Ray as well and she knew that a tired team would become a sloppy team. Time was against them, the production was moving on to Los Angeles in two nights time and realistically she could only keep one of the suspects in Vegas after then. Furthermore, they had no suspects in custody and a few hundred eyewitness accounts to go on, not enough to stand up in court.

"Right," Catherine began to move to one side of the room, "I say we go over all our suspects and leads again, starting with the leading male and shooter, Martin Salisbury."

"He had a good relationship with the victim," Sara continued, "the two of them were going to leave to set up their own theatre school in California after the production."

"Production Stage Manager confirms this," Ray spoke, "we know that the prop gun supposed to be used in the production was replaced with an authentic Glock 19 pistol. We know that Martin Salisbury was the shooter, intentional or not we're yet to determine but we have no fingerprints, shoe treads, or epithelials which put him in the prop room or on stage before the show began."

"Let's move on to suspect numero dos," Catherine intervened, walking back to the other side of the room, "Evan Morris, our prop manager who had a bit of a thing for the victim."

"He claims that he placed the prop gun in the drawer approximately two hours before the show was due to begin," Sara explained, "this suggests the gun was replaced between six pm and eight pm on the night of the shooting. Evan Morris has an alibi; he gave us a receipt from LuckyGoChicken which has a time of six twenty-two pm, Detective Vartann spoke to the guy serving who confirms he was in there."

"But the gun that was used to kill Lorna McAlman was registered to him," Ray pointed out, "he finds out that she was having sex with someone else, he gets jealous and finds a way to kill her. He's got motive, I've seen it happen before. As far as we know, he never could have put the gun in the drawer in the first place."

"But, Risetti said that the guy was sloppy, often leaves his things lying around, he's suitable for framing. Anyone could have taken that gun and put it in the drawer; I suppose he's the type of person who leaves their locker open, plant the prop gun there. Boom, automatic suspect."

"Those are logical theories," Catherine noted, "but this is all speculation and if we don't have the evidence to prove them, they'll never stand up in court. Right, what have we got on our final suspect?"

"Quinz Martinez Algora Risetti," Ray said unenthusiastically, placing emphasis on each of his flamboyant names to which Sara stifled a small smile. "We know he was in the victim's dressing room but that was forty-eight hours before her death. He convinced her not to go off with Martin Salisbury and stay on at the production."

"Evan Morris mentioned something about that being true when he overheard them, does Martin Salisbury know about her change of heart? It seems like something he wouldn't take easily." Sara suggested, a hint of excitement in her voice, had they found a missing link?

"Killing her over it seems a bit excessive," Catherine pointed out. "We could have Brass look into him a bit more."

"Oh but we've seen plenty of people kill for less logical reasons."

"I don't know Sara, there just doesn't seem to be anything right about this case. It's looking to be a perfect murder, or worse, an accident caused by workers' negligence." She sighed heavily and buried her face in her hands, "oh I can't believe we've come under all this stress and work for it to be just an accident."

"Actually, erm, I think I might have something beneficial for you," Catherine looked up and saw that Henry, the toxicologist had walked into the room with what looked like to be the tox report from Lorna McAlister. "Sorry it took a while, I've been extremely backlogged, Days are investigating a diarrhoea outbreak in an elementary..."

"Please tell me it's a breakthrough," Catherine cut in, her voice highlighting her desperation to close the case.

"A breakthrough, possibly, but anyway I found small amounts of hyoscine, hyosycamine, solanine, solamargine and various glycoalkaloids, all chemicals found in the berries of Solanum Americanum." Henry looked up to see three confused faces looking at him, encouraging him to elaborate. "Basically, she was poisoned by nightshade."

"Nightshade?" Sara repeated, surprised by the results, "Doc Robbins mentioned in autopsy that she had vomit lining the oesophagus long before her death, I presume caused by the nightshade? Maybe, having her shot was simply Plan B?"

"Nightshade is very poisonous," Ray spoke, "she must have consumed just a small amount to only get vomiting. That means the source must have contained a small amount or..."

"Or she only consumed a small amount of the source!" Sara said excitedly, "Ray, the champagne we found in her room! It was opened and had hardly been drunk at all. We completely forgot about it!" She slapped her forehead as the whole team realised that this was certainly a major breakthrough.

"Okay Sara," Catherine intervened, "you process the champagne bottle. Henry, good work, I need you to run tox on the champagne in the bottle, and that gets higher priority than diarrhoea!" Henry nodded and dashed off to work, "Ray, let's go and find out where we can get this nightshade."

* * *

><p>"We have your DNA on the hilt of the dagger that was used to kill Suzanne Hopkins," Nick explained to the terrified Katrina LeTorneau, "your father has said that he killed your best friend, but the evidence isn't pointing that way. Could you explain to me what really happened that night?"<p>

"You don't have to answer that," her attorney told her but she shook her head.

"The two of us, we went to a party," Katrina began speaking, her voice was shaky, high-pitched and she spoke slowly and so quietly Nick had to gesture to her to speak louder. "Sorry," she continued, "we both went back to mine; I didn't know that Dad was home. We were drunk. Then the next moment is all a blur, but suddenly, I, I see her waving granddad's dagger around. And then she's shouting at me, and, I don't know why. So I tried to take the dagger from her and... and..."

She began to stutter more and more, her eyes began welling up with tears and she was visibly beginning to shake. Nick told her to take her time and tried reassuring her. Katrina was able to calm down a little, she took a deep breath and she brushed her fringe out of her eyes. There was something which caught Nick's attention. "Hold on Katrina, show me your arms please."

Katrina recoiled slightly quickly hiding her arms from Nick but reluctantly rolled up her sleeves revealing many small scars which crawled from up her wrists to her elbow. Nick felt his stomach drop as he realised he fully understood what had happened that night.

"She attacked you with it didn't she," Nick spoke to her softly, tears began to fall again as she nodded her head slowly, "you tried to grab the knife off her," she nodded again and put her hand to her face to wipe away from the tears which cascaded down her pearly-white cheeks. "You got the knife from her, and she tried to grab it back?" Again, she nodded. "You killed her in self defence," he said which sent her over the edge. She had now buried her face in her arms and began crying into the table. Nick took her hand into his, offering comfort to the twenty year old, realising just how vulnerable she had become.

From behind the glass, Frank LeTorneau stood watching his daughter break down. He himself was finding it hard to watch and he too had some secrets to reveal, he turned to Greg, who was standing by him and explained, "I helped move the body to the Hopkins'. I cleaned up the mess. I cleaned my father's dagger. I couldn't lose my li'l girl so soon after my wife passed."

Greg nodded, without saying a word. Katrina was still in tears in the interrogation room, her co-operation was beginning to become stagnant. Greg still had one question remaining. "Why didn't you get rid of the sheet?"

LeTorneau looked at him sadly; he said just word, "Leverage." The look of confusion on Greg's face forced him to elaborate, "Katrina was the life of the party but she got 'erself into trouble often. Either with boys or booze. She was a loose cannon, I though' one day I was gonna lose her and I couldn' live with that possibility. I know it was bad of me, but I used it as a threat, if she got into trouble again I'd rather see her safely locked up in jail, than in a casket six fee' under. Is she goin' to jail?"

"Well," Greg began hesitantly, "although it was done in self defence, you failed to report it. You covered up and compromised the evidence which means, you'll both be doing time." LeTorneau remained motionless. "As much as I'd like the jury to see it as self defence, the fact you stayed quiet for almost a year, is going to swing them towards a charge of manslaughter." Greg saw for the first time emotion in LeTorneau's eyes as he prepared to leave, he felt a twinge of sadness for the guy who'd lost his wife, his daughter and now his own life, "I'm sorry."

LeTorneau sighed and continued staring at his daughter in distress, he quietly told himself ignoring Greg's apology, "so be it."

* * *

><p>The case was now moving forwards having had a stagnant start. Sara couldn't help but smile as she was able to find three fingerprints on the champagne bottle. She wasn't disheartened at first to find that the first two had come back to Lorna McAlman, the victim, but nevertheless she had most faith on the print which she had lifted near the neck of the bottle.<p>

"Doing my job for me I see," Mandy walked into the lab, casually sat on a chair behind Sara and began eating an apple.

"Sorry Mandy," Sara replied, not taking her eyes off the screen, "this was really important and you were on break." She put the final print through the scanner and watched the screen in front of her waiting for the result to come up.

"Don't worry about it! Swing has been really busy at the moment, I've already had to process thirty-two of them in the past hour alone, and I could do with a rest."

"Tox data from the champagne came back," Henry had entered the lab, "and the good news is that I found traces of your nightshade and amylase. Your victim spat some of it out; I guess that's why the poison didn't kill her."

"Nightshade?" Mandy inquired, "I thought you were investigating that theatre shooting, not some hocus pocus."

At that moment the computer screen beeped signalling that it had found a result. The three of them looked at the screen with anticipation; a smile broke out on Sara's face as she read the details off the screen. "Case closed."

* * *

><p>A photo was slung in front of his face. He looked down at it, it was a champagne bottle, but it was not just any bottle. It had been the one he had laced with the nightshade he had bought at the Sixth Sense Occult Shop, the one he had hand delivered to Lorna McAlman. It was his only mistake, the only slip-up in his perfect murder.<p>

"We know you killed Lorna McAlman," Jim Brass told the suspect, who sat back in his chair, arms folded with a smug expression on his face.

"Yes, I know, six hundred people saw me shoot the woman," Martin Salisbury answered, raising his eyebrows with confidence, despite the fact he knew he was done for. The nervous disposition he showed the previous night had vanished, clearly there was no need for his acting skills to be used now but he might as well go down fighting.

"Don't be a smart-ass, we have your fingerprint on this bottle of champagne, the special one you prepared, the one you spiked with nightshade, we know her death wasn't an accident, you murdered her."

Martin Salisbury's smile widened, his smile turned into laughter although it wasn't the friendly sort. It was more on the lines of cackling, a sinister laugh which sent shivers down Brass' spine. Then as soon as he had started, his laughter stopped. Completely dead-pan, with an expression which matched Brass'. "Tell me Captain Brass, do you know what it feels like, to have this plan, a plan that was going to make you, make the rest of your life a fantasy, then to have it all taken away and shoved back in your face?"

"Hmm, now that you mention it, no."

"Lorna and I, we were going to be successful, we were sick of travelling around in that crappy circus performance working for that creepy manager. We were going to start a new life, and live the lifestyle we always wanted and then she turned her back on me, for what?" He began to raise his voice, his temper was beginning to boil over and his face had turned a putrid purple colour. "Kinky sex with some creep? I made her happy and this is how she repays me!" He slammed his hands on the table and jumped to his feet.

"Sit down," Brass barked back at him. Martin was startled for a moment but he obliged, "tell me how you did it then."

"When I saw her at rehearsals on Friday morning, I flipped. Just before the show I went into that moron Morris' office and took his gun, he's always leaving it lying around and replaced the prop. I put the prop in his own locker, thinking he would get the blame for it and at the same time I could shut down the whole production! It was his own fault after all for blabbing about her decision change. Then when it came to showtime, I deliberately aimed it at her stone, cold heart."

"Sounds like the only one with the stone cold heart is yourself. Anyway, I've heard enough from you and we've got the evidence to convict you. Martin Salisbury, you're under arrest for the murder of Lorna McAlman."

As the officer led Martin away he turned back and looking directly at Brass he jibed, "Lorna McAlman was a bitch who deserved what she got, she devoted herself to one guy and opened herself up for everyone to have a go. If I couldn't have her... no one could."

Brass sighed and shook his head as he saw the killer put where he belongs. It was men like Martin Salisbury who made him doubt his faith in humanity, "this job just never gets easier," he muttered to himself.

* * *

><p>Catherine walked into the locker room to find both Ray and Sara in there, putting away various items and discussing the case. She sat herself down on the bench and let out a long sigh of relief, "well, we finally cracked it."<p>

"Tell me about it," Sara replied, substituting her work clothes into something a little less formal, "let's just say I'm not going to be visiting the theatre again in a hurry."

Catherine let out a huge yawn, "oh, I'm so tired and starving. Who's up for breakfast?"

"Are you paying?" Ray called out.

"Hell no, I can barely afford my microwave meals let alone feed the lot of you."

"I heard someone say breakfast," Greg had just joined them in the locker room closely followed by Nick, both of whom looked far more energetic and alert than the rest of them.

"Catherine's paying," Sara replied.

"Am not!" Catherine retorted, "so I heard you finally closed the Suzanne Hopkins case from last year."

"You heard correct," Nick replied, covering himself in aftershave, "I can't say it was a happy ending for anyone though, we just got back from telling Mrs Hopkins the news."

"She had a bit of a thing for Nick," Greg whispered to the other CSIs.

"Can't say I blame her," Catherine replied, "all of the ladies will drop dead for you if they saw you right now." She gave a wink to Nick and he shrugged it off, pulling over one his t-shirts. "Seeing as you boys have had an easy day today, you can pay for us this time."

"Whoa, I haven't even said yes to breakfast yet," Greg said, holding his hands in the air, "I still got to get ready for court tomorrow, testifying how some gamer got killed by his pizza."

"You never say no to breakfast," Sara said, playfully punching his arm, "besides it's your turn to pay."

"And you owe me about three breakfasts anyway," Ray added.

"Fine, fine I'll pay, so long as we can go to Frank's."

"Oh," Nick moaned, "no, not Frank's. We all know what happened last time we went there."

"Oh Nicky stop fretting," Catherine got up and shut her locker. "it's been so long since we've all eaten out for breakfast, besides the place holds some sentimental value to all of us."

"Plus, it's cheap," Greg pointed out.

"Fine, fine, but I get to choose next time," Nick conceded.

"It's okay," Catherine winked again, "I'm good at keeping to my promises."

* * *

><p>AN - and that is the end of the story. I hope you liked it as much as I enjoyed writing it. The next story in the series, _Crunch Time_ (1x02) will be published Friday June 24, so be sure to have a look at that as well if you enjoyed this story. Thank you all for reading and be sure to let me know what you thought! :)


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